Devils notes: Sun glare delays start of Stadium Series game

Here comes the sun

Yankee Stadium has endured its share of rain delays, but the first outdoor hockey game played there brought another first — a sun delay.

Opening faceoff was pushed back from 1:02 p.m. to 1:42 p.m. because a glaring sun created potentially dangerous vision problems for the players. There was also concern for the quality of the ice. A covering was kept over two-thirds of the surface to try to protect it.

"There’s no way we could have played," goaltender Martin Brodeur said. "It was so bright and even for the quality of the ice — even though it was the worst ice I ever played on — when you went from the shadows to the sun it was almost like a 10-degree difference."

Elias nets two

One of the positives for the Devils on Sunday was the play of forward Patrik Elias, who scored twice to end a 12-game goal drought. Elias, who returned Jan. 16 from a seven-game layoff with a groin strain, had not scored since Dec. 13 in Pittsburgh.

"For some reason, I needed to get my confidence back a little bit and, hopefully, today is going to help me even though we lost," Elias said. "I felt good that I put the puck in twice.’’

Wasted chance

While conceding it was "a special game," Devils right wing Jaromir Jagr wasn’t that interested in soaking in the atmosphere after the team wasted a chance to move into second place in the Metropolitan Division.

"You still think about those two points we wanted to win," said Jagr, who had a pair of assists to move two ahead of Mario Lemieux into 10th place all time. "Maybe if we would have played the first week of the season, it would be a different story. But we’ve got only 29 games left and every point is so important to us, so I didn’t really look around."